The polls and betting markets all predict Prime Minister John Howard will lose his bid for reelection in Australia. Stephen Samild looks at the race between Howard and Kevin Rudd and tell us why it's not over till it's over.

Who among us has not sent an email to the wrong person and felt the desire for recall? PJM columnist Brad Rourke, like many writers on the internet, knows what it's like to pay the price for hastiness in remorse.

We often have to edit interviews to provide as much variety each week as possible on PJM Political. Here is the full-length “Director’s Cut” version of our interview with ABC’s “Silicon Insider”, Michael Malone on his recent column, “How The New York Times Fell Apart“:

We often have to edit interviews to provide as much variety each week as possible on PJM Political. Here is the full-length “Director’s Cut” version of our interview with Diana West on her new book, The Death of the Grown-Up:

Diana West: The Death of the Grown-Up

West also recently appeared in a two-part video interview with Michelle Malkin on Pajamas-affiliate Hot Air. Click here for part one and part two.

Documents posted by the Drudge Report all but destroyed The New Republic's credibility surrounding the controversial reporting from Scott Thomas Beauchamp. PJM network blogger Bob Owens, who has been in the forefront of the investigation, reports on the latest news. He promises more when his request to the government for documents is finally answered.

Not all Jews were offended when Ann Coulter recently called them unperfected Christians. Instead of demanding the controversial columnist's head on a pike, PJM columnist Burt Prelutsky is reserving his anger for terrorists who behead innocent civilians.

Once upon a time, baseball was king, the players were gods and the country literally stopped when the World Series was on. This may no longer be true in our sports-saturated landscape in the ESPN age, admits Rick Moran - but for him, the Series, which opened Wednesday night, retains a mystique that is uniquely American.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy was faced with his marriage publicly falling apart, his entire transportation system paralyzed by a strike and his national rugby team suffering a humiliating defeat - all in one week. But, as PJM Paris editor Nidra Poller writes, presidents don't have time to mope.

PJM Roundup: The Drudge Report revealed on Wednesday internal documents from the investigation of The New Republic's "Baghdad Diarist," Scott Beauchamp. They suggested he embellished his stories in order to become the next Hemingway. And the blogosphere erupted in a torrent of wry observation.

A Wellesley woman a href=”http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/10/wellesley_stude.html?p1=email_to_a_friend”turned violent/a after breaking up with her boyfriend: br /br /blockquoteA 20-year-old female student at Wellesley College was charged today with breaking into a dormitory at MIT and stabbing her former boyfriend seven times as he slept, according to police and prosecutors.br /br /Anna Tang was ordered held without bail after her arraignment this afternoon in Cambridge District Court on charges of armed assault with intent to murder and home invasion.br /br /Suzanne Kontz, an assistant Middlesex district attorney, said in court that the victim, a 19-year-old student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, woke up to Tang stabbing him seven times. The couple had been romantically involved for eight months but broke up three weeks ago and the relationship took a violent turn, Kontz said.br /br /Kontz said that Tang sent the victim threatening e-mails and then broke into his dorm room today at about 6:30 a.m. Tang was arrested by Cambridge police inside the dormitory on Memorial Drive. The name and condition of the victim were not released. br /br /John Valerio, an attorney who represented Tang, described his client as a “meek and mild mannered” young woman who had been taking classes at MIT. Valerio said he will investigate the accusations. br //blockquotebr /br /I wonder if this woman will see any real jail time or whether she will just get a href=”http://drhelen.blogspot.com/2007/08/mary-winkler-could-go-free-today-thanks.html”the Mary Winkler treatment?/a

PJM San Diego: The world watches in horror as much of the most scenic regions in the U.S. burns and nearly a million people are evacuated. What does it feel like to live there right now? Long-time resident Michael Reynolds shares his fear, uncertainty and sadness.

Some 500,000 Californians have been forced to evacuate their homes because of spreading wildfires. Joe Gandelman, reporting for PJM from the home of the San Diego Chargers football team, describes a "constant panorama of families in pain and kids trying to figure out why their worlds were grabbed from them."

The Armenian genocide was a real historic tragedy, writes Jules Crittenden. Still, the U.S. cannot pursue the Pelosi-led policy of enabling a new genocide in Iraq through a symbolic assignment of blame on the murders of 90 years ago.

In response to my last a href=”http://drhelen.blogspot.com/2007/10/time-for-another-boston-tea-party.html”post on taxation,/a there are a few of you who feel that “rich” people, those making over $500,000 a year, should be hit with extremely high taxes. One commenter mentioned that many of the people he knows inherited money or found a “rich trophy wife ” (Huh, where are these rich trophy wives?). Another a href=”http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/10/robert_reich_suggests_a_new.php#comment-712432″commenter at Megan McArdle’s blog /areferred to those with over $500,000 in income as “fat cats,” who don’t work:br /br /blockquoteI’m not ideologically opposed to taxing wealth, mainly because I know a lot of fat cats that aren’t working. But it seems to me that there’s no pragmatic way (or at least, not one we’ve discovered yet) to penalize them without also hitting a lot of people who are working./blockquotebr /br /In his book, a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446580961?ie=UTF8tag=wwwviolentkicomlinkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0446580961″iMicrotrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes/i/aimg src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwviolentkicoml=as2o=1a=0446580961″ width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”" style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” / pollster Mark Penn describes the trend of the “shy millionaire” as Americans who live below their means. He states that we have a bit of a skewed perception about American wealth:blockquotebr /br /According to recent surveys, most Americans think there are far more millionaires in America than there really are–by about 4-fold. A survey done in the late 1990′s–when only about 4 percent of households had net assets over $1 million–showed that the public believed that 15 percent of households were that rich. (Today there are 9 million people in America worth $1 million or more, exclusive of their homes.) br /br /…According to the authors of the best-selling book, a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1567315682?ie=UTF8tag=wwwviolentkicomlinkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=1567315682″iThe Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy,/i/aimg src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwviolentkicoml=as2o=1a=1567315682″ width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”" style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” /the average millionaire in America went to public school, drives an American made car (and not this year’s model), and received span style=”font-style:italic;”zero/span {my italics} inheritance.br /br /…he isn’t interested in telling you how much money he has. Most millionaires would not be caught dead in a limo. It is the antithesis of what they believe in…/blockquotebr /br /Penn describes six different types of millionaires (I won’t go into all the types here) with the most prevalent group being the most quiet–the Satisfied Savers–these people are made up of welding contractors, pharmacists, pest controllers, etc. The Satisfied Savers are those millionaires who have worked hard, saved much, and lived below their means.br /br /Penn makes a very good point about why “class warfare” polemics rarely win in American politics:br /br /blockquotePromising to give the rich their comeuppance on behalf of the “little guy” has its shortcomings when many Americans believe that they, too, can be millionaires. Class warfare language directed at people who have worked hard to get where they are is a very unpredictable way to talk to American voters. It is quite different in Britain, where privilege is presumed to be behind success, but in America, equal opportunity is one of our most cherished values./blockquotebr /br /br /So rather than a bunch of “fat cats,” most millionaires are just the opposite: people who worked, lived below their means and saved a lot of money. Or as one politician put it, people who “worked hard and played by the rules.” All of us could learn from them. Jealous that they have not achieved this level of wealth, now many controlling types of people are scheming to take money from others through high tax rates that penalize the “shy millionaire” as much as the real “fat cats,” whatever that means. Instead of scheming like a bunch of thugs, perhaps the government and those that approve of their thuggery should learn to be more like the shy millionaires by spending below their means, saving, and showing some class.

Think it's hard to declare a major in college? Just imagine what it must be like for high school students, who are no slouches when it comes to making poor life choices. Joanne Jacobs reports on a growing trend in American education.

PJM Roundup: Barack Obama seemed to deliberately decline to put his hand over his heart during the national anthem while campaigning last month. At least one sharp-eyed Iowa blogger noticed it at the time. But it's taken till now for the photo of the incident - and later, a video - to circulate, and the buzz to ensue:

Bill Roggio looks at the worsening situation in Pakistan and argues that only a determined effort against the Taliban and al-Qaeda has any hope of succeeding - and that this effort must be led by the Pakistani government itself, however difficult that would be to arrange.